Lisbon Beach and Campground, Ogdensburg, New York
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. ~ Proverbs 3:5-6
I have no post for Monday. We spent the entire day getting ready to go into Canada. Maintenance things, some cleaning, menu planning, laundry, shopping, and a nearly stress-filled visit to the Post Office. Many of you are already aware we use a mail service company to receive any mail. That’s the Florida address. When this service receives something for us, they send an email with a picture of the item. We tell them what to do with it – pitch it, open and scan to us, or put it in an envelope and mail it to a Post Office of our choice. It arrives labeled “General Delivery”. It’s also how we have other ‘mail-order’ things sent.
I worked in an office all my adult life. I understand, and still practice a lot of common courtesy not found as often in today’s world. (Thanks for teaching that, Mom!) So when we started this process, I always call the receiving Post Office and let them know to expect a delivery. I feel that in today’s world, it’s even more important to let them know. In the past, Blaine didn’t share my sentiments on the subject. But I think he does now. 😊
We’d already picked up one package from the Lisbon Post Office. Now we were expecting one from our service. The envelope left Florida a week ago, Monday. Lisbon hadn’t received it. We leave tomorrow. What do we do? We’re not only leaving town, we’re leaving the country! After some discussion with the extremely helpful and kind postal worker, we not only learned a lot (like the importance of calling ahead 😊) but she found our envelope! Whew!
He was spraying his entire coach.
But here’s the thing. If he needs a mask, shouldn’t he move that child’s bike??
07/09/19
Camping Alouette, Quebec, Canada (Montreal)
We left 30 minutes later for our four-hour, 158-mile drive, than the original departure time that Blaine told me. I’m beginning to wonder if he sometimes purposely tells me an earlier time because he doesn’t think I’ll be ready on time. Hmmm . . . .
And here’s a question that plagued me for a bit today – – – Where did the osprey build their nests before telephone poles? I ask that because we passed quite a few as we toured down the road this morning.
We drove through the town of Mooers, NY. Yep. Mooers. As in the sound cows make. There wasn’t a single cow. Not even a picture of one. And then we drove through the town Mooers Fork. Yeah. Strange isn’t? But at least Mooers Fork represented with some bovine. Four to be exact. All positioned around the same feeding trough alongside the road. And if that wasn’t enough, guess what? We somehow, someway entered the town of Mooers – again! We know this because of the “Welcome to Mooers” sign. There was one at the first Mooers, too. The second Mooers had one cow. One lonely cow out standing in his field. He must really be outstanding, since he was the only one . . .
It was beautiful and distracting from nature both at the same time.
Wonder what they’ll do with us this time?
Canada doesn’t have anything like that. . . .
And then Canada let us in! Again! And they didn’t even want to see if I matched my passport. I could’ve been anybody. I could’ve been dead. He never would’ve known. The guy just asked for passports and the RV registration – – which no border crossing has ever asked for. But Blaine was able to get his hands on it immediately. It pays to be organized!
Looks to us like no one is using them. . . .
This will be our third summer spent in Canada. We love visiting up here, and expect more of the same gorgeousness and kindness this year. But we are in the French Province of Quebec and in our past experience the French Canadians are not exactly friendly to Americans – or anyone who’s not from around here. We didn’t realize this, but Quebec made French their official language in 1977. The majority of all Canadians speak English. The majority of French-speakers live in the Province of Quebec and French-speakers make up about 20% of all Canadians, while primarily English-speakers make up 75%. They say that over 86% of Canadians can converse in English.
And in other useless information, rounding off the top five languages in Canada (in order), Mandarin (Taiwan and Singapore), Cantonese (Hong Kong and some other Chinese places) and Punjabi (India). And in case you’re wondering? In the USA, the top five are English, Spanish (no surprise there), Chinese, Tagalog (includes Filipino) and Vietnamese.
Let’s get back on track! Because Quebec’s official language is French, the minute we crossed the border, everything changed – all the billboards, stores, everything – is in French! Good thing Blaine downloaded an English/French translator onto his phone.
Our campsite is very nice, but much further from Montreal than we thought. It’s going to be 45 minutes! Mostly because of heavy traffic, but still. We thought it would be 20-30! We’ll be up very early tomorrow because we have a tour that we have to meet by 9:45am. And we don’t know how to get there. Early is better than late. The meeting place serves pastries and beignets for those who are interested. 😊
And then the hits just kept on coming . . . . .
As I mentioned, we liked our site. But it’s stinkin’ hot here. I think we’re closer to the sun . . .
And there’s a beautiful large mountain within our view, but it’s so hazy we can’t see it clearly. Then we discovered there’s a smog alert. Turns out, there’s some wildfires going on.
After dinner, our power kept going out. Did I mention that it’s stinkin’ hot? And without air, our little box became sweltering, especially when my power surges kicked in. We had a fan, but all it was doing was blowing the hot air around.
Blaine hit the top of his head really hard and jammed his neck. He was fine, but it hurt and added to the tension.
We struggled with trying to find points of interest on a city map, until we finally just gave up.
And then there were the phone calls. A call from the campground office told us that we were in the wrong site. Blaine tried to explain that we were in the site they gave us. By 8:15pm, the dilemma was still on-going. They left a message insisting we were in the wrong spot. Blaine tried to call back, but no answer. It’s much too late to move now, and we’re expecting a 14 hour day tomorrow, so whatever has happened, it will have to wait. There are plenty of empty sites around here.
It’s time for bed! In the immortal words of Scarlett O’Hara, “Tomorrow is another day!”
By the way, for those of you who wonder or have asked, I have to say that in the past two years of full-timing, my favorite time was last July, in the midst of our Lake Superior Circle Tour. Sleeping Giant Park and paddling on Lake Superior have been the highlights thus far. Here’s a couple of pictures that represent why:
